Guns, Rebels & Pasture in the Great Acceleration : Decreasing land productivity and conflict intensity in South Sudan

Abstract: The relationship between environmental change and violent conflict has increasingly received attention in recent years. Most of the research has focused on fast-onset environmental disasters, rather than slow-moving environmental processes, however. This thesis aims to contribute to filling that gap by assessing the effect of decreasing land productivity on the intensity of violent conflict by theorizing that pastoralists and farmers affected by decreasing land productivity must turn to drastic measures to provide for themselves, increasing the intensity of violent conflict in the process. This is done through a structured, focused comparison that assesses four states in South Sudan, Central Equatoria, Eastern Equatoria, Warrap and Lakes in the period of 2014 through 2019. Due largely to the lack of data, no clear and systematic support for the hypothesis or the causal mechanism is found. The thesis suggests that future research should focus on interviewing affected people on the ground or to attempt to study decreasing land productivity through more quantitative methods.